


Lily and the Art of Divine Responsibility

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: October [11]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Dimension Travel, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Friendship/Love, Genocide, Humor, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Religion, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Tragedy, Unrequited Love, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 12:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15796617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: After meeting a being Azrael claims is God he decides to ask Tom for advice, the end up getting hopelessly drunk instead. In the meantime Lily tries out being God and it goes about as well as you would expect it to.





	Lily and the Art of Divine Responsibility

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory note of NOT CANON to either series.

“I need advice.”

 

It had been years, decades, to the point where had Tom been a normal human being with a normal memory he would have forgotten the finer details. He would have forgotten the texture of his hair, the faint colors in his skin, that boneless way he glided through a room.

 

And there he was, as if a day hadn’t passed, sitting in his office in the middle of bloody Scotland as if they were both still students and Tom still had ambitions of grandeur.

 

It was almost reflex, without thought, a flat and still, “No.”

 

He was sitting in the chair in front of Tom’s desk, staring idly at the decorations, and for a split second he seemed the same as he’d ever been. Eternally patient, transcending the plane of reality, and completely at odds with his surroundings. He truly did look like an emperor visiting a school, an ancient and immortal Martian king visiting a school.

 

And he discovered that he really wasn’t in the mood to put up with that sort of thing.

 

Azrael’s eyebrows raised and he offered a weak and somewhat chagrined smile, “It’s been… a long time, hasn’t it?”

 

“More than ten years.” Tom responded flatly, making his way over until he was sitting behind his desk, staring flatly back at the seemingly young emperor.

 

“And you’re a professor now… I never imagined you would become the Muggle Studies Professor.” Azrael said, his smile growing somewhat, although still wary as if waiting for Tom to throw him out.

 

And Tom was tempted to because a part of him still wasn’t ready, would never be ready to face Azrael again, a part of him was still angry and ashamed and trapped on Ubik in one final confrontation with Orion Black. But that was not everything… He still thought about Azrael far too often.

 

“Neither did I.” He finally said, relaxing into his chair with a sigh, feeling something deflate out of him.

 

This wasn’t how he wanted this to go, he wasn’t sure how he wanted it to go but this wasn’t it, this awkward silence in his office no less. He wanted build up to this, a reason, something that would point him, a letter, or better Tom deciding that it was time not… this…

 

Whatever this was.

 

“Why are you here?” He finally asked, when it seemed they had both run out of pointless things to say.

 

Azrael’s eyes darkened and he too seemed to deflate, as if he had been hoping to avoid this, “I’m afraid I’m at a bit of a loss.”

 

“That’s unusual.” Tom noted and Azrael shook his head.

 

“No, I’m often at a loss, but more so than usual lately… Do you remember, before Ubik, that summer in the orphanage you and I talked about what it means to be God.”

 

It was a rhetorical question, Tom did remember, that was the end of… It was the end of when things were simple and easy. When Tom was allowed his baseless ambitions without having to recognize the reality he lived in. It was harder now, so much later, to recognize the boy he’d been back then.

 

“I found my answer.” Azrael finished somberly and then added, “I found God.”

 

That was not what Tom had been expecting. He opened his mouth to ask if Azrael was being serious but then closed it because he was, Azrael was being perfectly serious, and if anyone would know God on sight…

 

“Her name is Lily.”

 

“God’s name is Lily.” Tom repeated dully.

 

“Yes, I was surprised too.” He said with a stiff and uncomfortable shrug, “But then, she’s… not what I would have expected from God.”

 

“What would you have expected?” Tom asked, he would have expected something beyond human comprehension, Azrael had probably expected the same. Then again who knew what Azrael would expect from God?

 

“Not a red head little girl, who looks uncomfortably like my mother, and has a penchant for quoting Chuck Norris.” Azrael finally settled on with a surprising amount of frustration and confusion, as if he’d been thinking about this for some time but still hadn’t found his answer, “Or someone who insisted on recreating Star Wars when she realized I had colonized Mars. Complete with overhauling the magical school and replacing it with a Jedi Knight academy, somehow creating ewoks and populating one of the moons with them, and creating a Sith overlord only to conquer him.”

 

There really was only one thing he could say to that, “What?”

 

Because really, he hadn’t understood anything Azrael had just said, even more than usual. But Azrael was continuing regardless, with a bewildered expression and wild hand gestures.

 

“And the thing is, she’s almost completely indifferent to me. No, I’m like a puzzle to her, something she finds vaguely familiar and entertaining but nothing truly dangerous or important. Everything to her is fleeting, nothingness, pointless, and tiresome. And she’s more powerful than I am, I don’t know how or why but she is… And I have no idea what to do.”

 

He finished by throwing his hands in the air and looking at Tom in desperation as if somehow Tom would know what to do in this situation.

 

“Is she still in Ubik?”

 

“She goes and does what she pleases, often times in many places at once, I have no idea where she is or what she’s doing only that it’s bound to turn world orders on its head somewhere.” Azrael groaned, leaning over Tom’s desk and shaking his head, looking how Tom felt when grading third year essays for his introductory course.

 

“What do you think you should do about her?”

 

“I don’t know if I can do anything about her let alone if I should…” Azrael said, his voice muffled as he continued to speak into the desk rather than at Tom, “I don’t know what to do anymore…”

 

“Well then,” Tom said pragmatically, “It appears there’s only one solution.”

 

Azrael looked up with so much hope in his eyes as Tom dug through the contents of his desk. Tom brought out the bottle of fire whisky.

 

“It’s time, emperor of Ubik, to get hideously drunk.”

 

* * *

 

Uncle Death’s pseudo brother wasn’t a bad guy necessarily, he was just… Well he wasn’t Death, not the one she knew. He was similar, very similar, but not quite the same. His smiles didn’t reach his eyes when he looked at her, he was burdened by his responsibilities, by his ties to the material world.

 

Death was beyond materialism; this man hadn’t realized he could be yet.

 

But he had great ideas and Lily would say that she took them to heart. When you didn’t like the world, when you got bored, when you didn’t like the way the cogs of the universe turned then why not just make your own?

 

Why not make your own glorious empires and battles and histories? Why not make an actual Mount Doom and hide Godzilla inside it? Why not?

 

Well, Wizard Lenin would have probably had a few reasons why not, which she probably wouldn’t have listened to anyways…

 

Or at least, that was what she told herself, when she had originally had her latest and greatest idea. That was back when she was still on the newly transformed, and strangely fluorescent Mars, and had decided to play the ‘what would Wizard Lenin say to Lily’s latest shenanigans’ game.

 

Wizard Lenin would say it’s dangerous to have that kind of power.

 

Lily would say she’d always had that kind of power, she’d just never realized it or put it to use.

 

Wizard Lenin would then say that maybe there was a reason for that, that maybe there was power you weren’t supposed to have.

 

Lily would say she wouldn’t have it if she wasn’t supposed to have it.

 

Wizard Lenin would accuse her of playing God.

 

Lily would ask, in all seriousness, if she wasn’t actually God.

 

Pseudo-Death, he was afraid of that realization, it had been in his eyes as he’d looked at her that he’d been having similar thoughts himself. But even he couldn’t do what she’d done, he said so himself, and what was more powerful than Death itself; the destroyer of worlds?

 

Still, every once in a while, when she was distracted enough, she would wonder if the hypothetical Wizard Lenin didn’t have a point? Because this did seem… dangerous.

 

Lines were being crossed; lines she’d barely realized even existed.

 

But then it’d dawned on her that she was stuck, at least, if she didn’t want to become the destroyer of universes she was stuck. Time, reality, it all felt fragile here like it was barely holding itself together and one wrong tear would send the thing collapsing into itself. And with that realization she’d grown cold and bored and realized there was no point putting it off anymore.

 

So she’d colonized other worlds, terraformed them, and was on her latest conquest of Pluto standing in front of the alien race she had just created from the gas and dirt on the planet. She should probably be worried about that, they weren’t quite rabbit-esq but none the less she recognized that she’d crossed some line somewhere, making tea was one thing…

 

Creating life and sentience was quite another.

 

Even Jesus didn’t do that on his three year miracle tour.

 

“Hello everybody,” Lily waved at them all, they were a pale people, paler than her even. Thin and lanky, yet surprisingly human looking, they were taller than humans on average. Their hair was pale, the darkest shades being strawberry blonde, and their eyes were mostly pupils with only a thin sliver or pale iris showing. They stood together like thin and silent trees, waiting for distant light that took years to reach them, and growing steadily in the dark.

 

“As you may or may not have noticed, you’re now people, so there’s that.”

 

They stared out at her blankly, no one moving, the children slinking into the legs of their mothers and fathers.

 

They probably didn’t speak English, Lily hadn’t exactly been thinking of that when she put everything together, that might actually be a problem. Staring at them Lily realized that there potentially could be quite a few problems; and that making something from scratch was a lot harder than using a template.

 

She had no idea how they were supposed to act and so they had no inherent idea of how they were supposed to act. All they knew how to do was stand there, look pretty, and remember to breathe.

 

They stared at each other for a few moments until Lily said, still loudly in front of everyone, “I’d better stick around and help out.”

 

* * *

 

“You know… You know… Tom, I don’t think I’ve ever… ever seen you drunk.” Azrael had slumped further onto the desk, Tom was slumped over it as well, his face too close to Azrael’s.

 

This was bad, no one would walk in but, but he was currently getting wasted with the very young looking emperor of Ubik in his office. It would be all well and good if he was in his right mind at least, if he could act if somebody did happen to break past the wards he’d set up, but everything was getting sluggish.

 

This was a terrible decision.

 

“I don’t think… think… I’ve ever been this drunk.” Tom slurred out, everything was a bit fuzzy at the edges, hard to think.

 

“I should go…” Azrael whined, “She’s, she’s up to something I know it. Can feel it…”

 

“No, stay… stay..” He couldn’t think of anything to say beyond that and talking was just too exhausting now, he didn’t have to say a reason, he just needed him to stay for once in his life just stay in the damn castle.

 

“No, busy…”

 

“Busy my ass, I’m busy.” Tom complained, and he was, before Azrael had shown up out of nowhere.

 

Azrael chuckled weakly, “I feel… I feel so hopelessly lost. Human.”

 

“Welcome to the real world.” It was about time that Azrael got a taste of his own medicine. He was almost starting to like this girl, Lily, whatever the hell she was that was terrifying enough to make Azrael question his own power.

 

Azrael had stopped a world war, apparently this girl made him look like a tiny ant, Tom probably should be worried about that.

 

“You know, I’ve never trusted little girls.” Tom said, the realization dawning on him, “They were always up to something… like the dating.”

 

“The dating?”

 

“They always wanted a date, because I’m pretty, and I never trusted one of them. Ever.”

 

Azrael drunkenly laughed, dismissing this, “You don’t trust anyone.”

 

“True, but I trust them even less than I trust everyone else. All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others… You know.”

 

He didn’t know whether the laughter meant Azrael agreed or not but Tom was convinced, or as convinced as he could be, when everything was so goddamned fuzzy.

 

* * *

 

“Godddammit they’re doing it again!”

 

The other planets hadn’t had this problem, but then the other planets hadn’t been based on nothing, had really been more of constructs than actual people. Ewoks weren’t that complicated, they were bears and they danced, that was about it, these people had the ability to construct their own ideas and apparently that led to them doing things like this.

Even when she said not to, because it was weird, multiple times.

 

She was standing in front of a temple, sculpted into the side of a mountain range, and in front of it was a giant statue of her. Once again Lily was being worshipped as a supreme goddess.

 

They were staring at her, waiting for some kind of reaction, probably waiting for her to tear it down like she had the last few times they’d done this. Of course, the first time they’d still been getting down the basics like shelter, food, farming, fire, and all she’d had to do was snap a doll made of twigs in half. They’d never really done anything… this big before.

 

“Looks great, love the statue!” She said sticking both thumbs up and inside her head the absent Wizard Lenin was laughing, laughing so hard he was almost crying, because she was almost crying at this point.

 

Because why did this keep happening?

 

She’d even tried teaching religion when it became clear that they wanted one, had brought up the whole Jesus thing, and then Buddha, and then transformed every religion somehow into the same one but with the addition of the demi god Chuck Norris.

 

Because unlike Achilles, Chuck Norris had no mortal weaknesses.

 

But for whatever reason they hadn’t bought it, or had just ignored it, sure at first they’d built a temple here and there to Bruce Lee but then they’d stopped that, those had grown dusty, and they’d made a giant ass temple to her proclaiming her to be the only true divine being.

 

And now she had to convince them she wasn’t because she had the feeling that being God came with a lot of responsibilities she neither wanted nor needed.

 

“You are not pleased, Eternal Star Flower?” A tall young man was looking at her critically, the head priest, which was ironic since he’d just overturned the whole religion she’d set up in favor of worshipping her.

 

He had some bizarre name, like Stardust or Shadow of the Moon, they all had names like that, permanent objects in their lives rather than a simple name. She didn’t remember what his specific name was just that he’d always been the first one to pick up on just about everything and had decided once things were underway that he wanted to understand the true nature of the universe, she’d recommended physics but he’d turned instead to religion.

 

“It’s Lily, and no, it’s fine… It’s just… You know… Large.” Lily finally settled on and then added, “Besides, why would you want me for a goddess anyway?”

 

“It’s not about wanting, Eternal Star Flower, but about being. We cannot choose the nature of the universe.”

 

“Yes you can.” Lily did it all the time, it was all she did, it was all her vacation in another dimension was about really.

 

“You can, but we cannot.” He said, sounding as if this was important, and this was probably also true since no one could quite glitch like Lily could but still…

 

Wizard Lenin was a stout atheist, very against the idea of a divine old man planning his life, and he’d brought up a lot of arguments against the guy during his tenure in her brain. She called on some of them now.

 

“What about the whole evil thing, if I’m God, and I’m benevolent, why would I let evil exist in the first place? Why would I let people do terrible things to each other, like murder, and detention with Squirrel?” Lily pointed out and the man blinked, looking puzzled for a moment, but he was puzzled in the way that he had faith in the answer. Like no matter how he saw it she really was God and that if he didn’t come to that conclusion then he must somehow have thought of it in the wrong way.

 

“Because you are an eternal being and cannot possibly hope to recognize good from ill just as we cannot possibly hope to recognize what you deem to be moral. You did not create us in your image but instead allow us to explore ourselves, and there are consequences in that, we will fall from time to time but we will also climb.”

 

That was not an answer that Wizard Lenin would have accepted, if he was here, but if he was here he also would have been sulking in her brain saying that she’d once again caused everything to fly out of hand.

 

Which she had, probably, but she would never tell him that (if he was here).   

 

“Seriously?” She asked instead and the man quirked a smile at her, patted her on the shoulder as if to comfort her, and then slowly sauntered away with all the serenity of a prophet.

 

Lily lifted her head to the heavens, wondering if anyone was out there to hear her or if she really was it, “Seriously?”

 

No one responded.

 

* * *

 

At some point Tom just stopped being able to think at all.

 

“You know, I think Minerva… Minerva still has that goddamn crush on me. She just looks at me sometimes, you know.”

 

Azrael gave a small ‘hm’ to show he was still conscious and probably listening. Tom was on his… he’d lost count of how many glasses he’d had of fire whisky but the bottle was running dangerously low.

 

“And you, you’re the worst.”

 

Azrael mumbled something that might have been sorry.

 

“The worst, because you’re so out of it that you never even noticed. I had to say it, the worst.”

 

Azrael’s muffled reply was a bit louder this time, “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

 

“Bullshit you meant it.” Tom interrupted, because he did, because Azrael was a giant asshole.

 

He was the giant asshole that showed up in your office after decades, after having rejected you, to talk about his problems with little girls. He was that kind of an asshole, the worst kind.

 

Azrael began shaking and then declared, still a little too loud, “You’re right, I’m the worst!”

 

“You’re not the worst.” Tom muttered, wanting to somehow take it back.

 

“No, I’m the worst.” Azrael repeated, shaking his head on the desk, “I’ve always been the worst.”

 

“No, you know who’s the worst?”

 

“Me?”

 

Tom leaned in close, “Dumbledore.”

 

Dumbledore was the worst, he’d always been the worst, and now as his boss he was even worse than before. Now he wore clashing colors and pretended to be insane, but Tom knew better, Tom remembered the old days.

 

“Dumbledore’s not… No, you’re right, he is.”

 

“I’m always right, it’s why it’s so hard being me.”

 

* * *

 

On a whim Lily had joined her own cult. Well, not her cult because she hadn’t really meant to start it, but the cult religion that was dedicated to worshipping her. She’d decided that since this kept happening, and was apparently going to keep happening, she’d better join up and see what all the fuss was about.

 

Not that Lily didn’t like herself, or understand that she was different and better at certain things than most mortal races, but all the same she’d never thought to worship herself as a god.

 

After a couple months by Pluto’s calendar she still wasn’t sure she found the appeal.

 

She was currently meditating, trying to get in touch with… well her. They’d been doing it for hours and maybe it meant something for everyone else but for her, well, she already was Lily so how was she supposed to get in touch with Lily.

 

There were a lot of issues like that.

 

Such as prayer, she’d pointed out to everyone that she didn’t actually hear them praying and if they wanted her to do something they could always send her a post card or use sticky notes, they’d said she missed the point.

 

Or when she pointed out that the divine commandments they’d said she’d supposedly set in place she’d never actually set in place; and that she technically broke them all the time. They responded by saying that she was ineffable and could never be fully understood by mortal beings.

 

Which was a cop out if she’d ever heard one; absently she wondered if the ineffability argument would have gotten her out of having to go to Snape or Quirrell’s classes.

 

So here she was sitting with her least favorite head priest, who’d kindly taken on the task of explaining to her Lily’s own divine plan, listening to water drop into a pool for hours and wondering when she could get up and leave without seeming terribly impolite.

 

And the thing was that they didn’t even really need her anymore, she was swiftly becoming superfluous. They’d developed shelter, tools, language, culture and everything humans generally wanted out of existence. They didn’t need her guiding the way anymore at this point she might even be standing in the way; because why would they ever do anything for themselves if she was standing right there?

 

Lily sighed and stood, causing the head priest to blink in surprise, “Yeah, I’m done.”

 

“Done?” He asked, as if such an idea was inconceivable. To him it probably was, she’d been here since the dawn of time, as far as he was aware, and he probably hadn’t even considered that she could leave.

 

“This is weird and boring… And weird.” She responded, because it was, really disconcerting. The whole worshipping Lily thing had never stopped being disconcerting.

 

Before she could leave though the man stood, looking at her oddly, and she found herself staring back with something like unease welling in her stomach. She wasn’t sure who he reminded her of, a mixture, of Death and Lenin somehow blended together to make something mortal and yet with a connection to that which existed beyond immortality.

 

He stepped towards her, placing his hands on her shoulders, and looked her straight in the eye with a force of will that was not to be reckoned with. These were the types of personalities that toppled empires and conquered worlds.

 

“You would abandon your own people?”

 

It began to dawn on Lily, perhaps too late, that she’d only ever made interesting people. At first it’d been replications of things she’d seen, like ewoks, but this last group of people… She felt no reason to create something she herself couldn’t appreciate. And she did appreciate them, because they were clever, and they were passionate, but more than that they were powerful.

 

There was a little bit of her, of her own limitless power, in each of them.

 

And they burned like too bright candles in the dark; and a candle can only burn so bright for so long…

 

“Not abandon…” Lily trailed off, because she hadn’t considered staying either.

 

The man’s expression darkened and his grip tightened, “You cannot leave us; we are your children.”

 

Funny, because her parents had had no trouble leaving her. Of course, they had died, but that was sort of beside the point.

 

But he didn’t wait for her to answer; instead he answered his own question.

 

“We will not allow it.” 

 

* * *

 

Azrael and Tom had set up a dart board featuring Albus Dumbledore’s face and were taking turns throwing darts into it. Azrael had surprisingly good aim for a drunk but so far neither of them had managed to hit him in his twinkling eyes.

 

“Be the dart, Azrael, you have to be the dart!”

 

Azrael missed, the dart instead embedding itself in Tom’s wall and wobbling dangerously, “You’re being distracting, Tom.”

 

Azrael was also a rather terrifying drunk or at least drinking had brought out his distaste for Dumbledore. Because even while swaying slightly there was hatred and perhaps even betrayal as Azrael’s eyes focused on Dumbledore.

 

Azrael reached for another dart and threw it once again missing his mark.

 

* * *

 

On Pluto a great holy war broke out between a god and her people; the fires raged for forty days and forty nights and when they extinguished the land was fruitless and barren.

 

And only God remained.

 

* * *

 

The next morning Azrael had disappeared from whence he came, perhaps with an answer to his problem or not, Tom unfortunately couldn’t quite remember. All he did know was that his office looked as if it had been bombed, there was a picture of Ablus Dumbledore taped to his wall, and that he had a pounding headache.

 

“Never again.” He promised himself, rubbing his temples, and with a wave of his hand resetting the room into its usual position.

 

Before he could move any further, find a potion for the hangover, the door opened and a young girl stepped in.

 

And Tom had absolutely no doubt that this was the little girl that Azrael had said was tearing up the foundations of the universe and was God.

 

Time didn’t merely stop around her but sucked into her, as if she was some sort of black hole, and everything warped to suit her purposes. Reality itself bent to her whims and she acted as if this was the natural order of things; as if she expected nothing less.

 

She was pale like he was, had his eyes, but her hair was a bright red instead and looking at her he couldn’t help but shudder. And her eyes, death lingered inside of them and stared out at the world as if it was nothing more than dust.

 

She sat down in the chair across from his desk, the same one Azrael had occupied the night before, and inspected him dully for a little while. Eventually she said, “It seems I’ve run out of options and that you were right.”

 

He said nothing, for one having no idea what she was talking about, for another her very presence was putting him on edge more so than anything had ever done before. That sixth sense of his was telling him to pay very close attention and to be very careful about what he chose to say or do.

 

She sighed looking at him almost dejectedly but with a small, soft, smile, “I’ve discovered that I don’t make a very good divine being. I think I’m better off just being Lily.”

 

She looked at him as if this was supposed to mean something and in the silence she appeared to realize that it meant nothing and her expression darkened into nothingness, “Right, we’ve never actually met, because you’re not actually Lenin. My name’s Lily, I also go by Eleanor Lily Potter, and I’ve decided to attend Hogwarts again because colonizing the universe turned out to be a lot less fun than I expected.”

 

Somehow, even then, he knew that it was the beginning of the end of wizardry in Great Britain.

**Author's Note:**

> Someone asked for the typical "Lily" crossover with October, and so we get this mess of humor and horror which I really enjoy. Really, this sub-series is one of my favorites.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comment, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


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